Battered Tigers take battle to sea

• Point Pedro and Colombo port operations give grim message
• Boast by military top brass driving LTTE away with its hardware
• Arrested suicide couple reveal possible attack on VIPs in Colombo

By Iqbal Athas

Two Sri Lanka Navy Fast Attack Craft (FACs), on a routine patrol off the north eastern seas, were the first to observe a flotilla of Sea Tiger boats. It was just past 3 p.m. on Sunday off the coast of Vettilaikerni.

They reported to the Northern Naval Area Headquarters in Kankesanthurai. The flotilla, which one Navy source said was made up of 21 boats, was heading northwards. Alarm bells rang at the main navy base in the north. Not clear about what the flotilla was planning to attack, maximum security precautions went into effect. That included measures to thwart any attempts to attack the headquarters itself.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ports and Aviation Mangala Samaraweera congratulates a Navy sailor engaged in thwarting the LTTE's attempt to attack the Colombo Harbour.

FACs in the waters outside the headquarters, said to be around ten, were hurriedly dispatched. At least four sailed near the vessel unloading a cargo of flour. Others went some five nautical miles off Point Pedro where the two FACs on routine patrol were awaiting the guerrilla flotilla. Around 4.30 p.m., sea battles began. Soon two Mi-24 helicopter gun ships of the Air Force joined in. The Army also helped by firing artillery from land towards the Sea Tiger boats.

A high-ranking source at Navy Headquarters in Colombo, gave details of the event. He spoke on grounds of anonymity since he is not authorized to talk to media. Just past 5 p.m., six Sea Tiger boats led by an explosive laden one with suicide cadres headed towards the cargo vessel. The lead boat rammed into the ship creating a gaping hole on the steel outer wall at the stern. It was nearly five feet wide and 18 feet long. This came about after the guerrillas fired RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) earlier.

The cargo vessel City of Liverpool had arrived from Trincomalee with 1850 tons of flour, part of a consignment to meet the acute shortage in the Jaffna peninsula. Just over 400 tons had been unloaded that day. With the Sea Tiger flotilla approaching, one of the measures taken by Northern Naval Area Headquarters was to ask the vessel's captain to heave anchor and head for Kankesanthurai. Navy protection was to be afforded for the move.

But they had already come under attack. The crew of 19 included seven Indian and two Indonesian nationals. Eight Navy sailors who were on duty on board the cargo vessel also directed fire at the advancing Sea Tiger boats. Thirteen persons were injured. That included five sailors, two Indians and an Indonesian. The second officer is said to be in a critical condition.

By 7.30 p.m., the Sea Tiger boats began their withdrawal. When they were about to beach at Thalayady, Air Force Kfir interceptor jets arrived at the scene. Thalayady is located far south of the Army’s Nagerkovil defence lines in the north eastern coast. A Sea Tiger facility is located there. The jets carried out bomb attacks but details of the damage caused are not known. Military officials claimed the Navy had destroyed three Sea Tiger boats. This, however, cannot be independently verified.

The crew was evacuated after the fighting ended. Thereafter, under Navy escort City of Liverpool was towed to the waters off the Navy base at Kankesanthurai. Its owners, Liverpool Navigation (Private) Ltd., a Colombo based company will now have to decide on the fate of the vessel.

In the past months, the Jaffna peninsula has been gripped in starvation due to acute food shortages. One of the items which were in short supply was flour, a widely used commodity there for most meals. It therefore defies all logic why the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) attacked a cargo vessel that was carrying a badly needed food commodity to the people in the peninsula. Theories abound. But it is widely known that no military cargo is unloaded in Point Pedro where there are no berthing facilities. The cargo is first unloaded on to barges in the high seas, moved to the shore to be transported in lorries for distribution. Was it a move to warn other shippers not to engage in transporting cargo to the north?

Was it to tell them that their vessels too would be attacked? Whatever the motives are, the move, if repeated, will only lead to more food shortages and resultant starvation in the peninsula. That is bad enough.

Equally bad, if not worse, was another aspect. The Government's commitment to ensure, despite all obstacles, that the people in Jaffna peninsula were supplied with their food requirements gets nullified. This is when the Sri Lanka Navy is unable to secure, for whatever reason, the Point Pedro harbour - a vital nerve centre and one of the means through which the Government has to ensure its writ runs in the Jaffna peninsula. In the past weeks and months, food shortages in Government-controlled areas forced civilians, who underwent hardships, into the lap of the LTTE. When such a situation was seemingly improving, the Navy's apparent inability to protect a vital port from any guerrilla presence, leave alone an attack, raises serious questions.

However, the Commander of the Navy Vice Admiral Vasantha Karannagoda, spent most of his time at the Operations Room at Navy Headquarters in Colombo when the fighting was under way off Point Pedro. He told Wednesday's meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) during a very brief presentation that his men fought heavy battles with the Sea Tigers. He showed part of footage from MSIS (an onboard camera linked to the weapons system on FACs). Earlier, the Commander of the Air Force Air Marshal Roshan Gunathilaka had given a brief on how his men engaged the guerrillas from air during the attack at Point Pedro.

It was only two weeks ago The Sunday Times (Situation Report - January 14) disclosed a warning issued to its establishments countrywide by Navy Headquarters (NHQ). It called upon them to remain alert for possible Sea Tiger attacks. The NHQ pointed out that a group of cadres had been trained to attack naval installations, convoys, coastal deployments or harbours. It was pointed out that the training imparted to them has been the same as those given to a group who made an abortive attempt in June, last year, to attack the Colombo harbour.

At Wednesday's NSC meeting, President Mahinda Rajapaksa was to congratulate the Army for their success in regaining Vakarai. Two of the senior officers involved in the conduct of the operation were flown from Batticaloa to Colombo and attended the NSC meeting. He shook hands with Special Forces Brigade Commander Col. Prasanna Silva and Brigadier Daya Ratnayake of the Army's 223 Brigade (headquartered in Welikanda). He praised them for their leadership of the troops who bravely secured Vakarai. They were later told to cut a chocolate cake to mark the victory. The two senior officers were also afforded a photo opportunity with the President at the NSC meeting.

Significant enough, the Sea Tiger attack came barely 24 hours after the Tiger guerrillas, coming under very heavy pressure from the Army, ceded Vakarai and beat a hasty retreat. Clearly, the LTTE which was embarrassed or even humiliated there wanted to retaliate. Even if they failed to sink the City of Liverpool, the Sea Tigers left a message behind - their ability to move freely in the north eastern seas and enter Point Pedro harbour to carry out an attack.

The LTTE also made another hurried attempt that misfired. Gunabanda Amerasingham and Dharmaraja Sivarasy were among passengers who passed through the Wadinagala check-point. Amerasingham's father was Sinhalese and mother Tamil. Hence, he had been conversant with both languages. The check-point is located within the Iginiyagala Police area. The couple, who had been well trained, pretended to be husband and wife. They possessed two cyanide capsules. They were arrested and brought down to Colombo for further interrogation. Though they were headed for the City they did not want to take a direct bus from Batticaloa to Colombo. This was for fear of being checked at various road blocks. Hence, they had travelled in buses that operated from Batticaloa to closer destinations. This way they had planned to board several buses before reaching Colombo in a bid to avoid rousing suspicion.

The couple had claimed they had "orders" from their LTTE handler in Batticaloa to meet a contact person in Colombo. He was to give them a target to accomplish. In addition, they were to be taken to a hideout in Colombo to collect an explosive laden suicide jacket, a move that indicated they were planning to kill a VIP. Detectives are still verifying the veracity of their claims. They do not rule out the possibility that the duo were keeping away some vital information from them. Raising their concern are intelligence reports that at least 15 suicide cadres had infiltrated the City of Colombo to carry out attacks. Constant checks carried out by the security forces and the police had considerably disturbed LTTE cells operating in the greater Colombo area. Yet they were active.

The stepped up campaign of retaliation after the loss of Vakarai by opening up new fronts continues. A pre-dawn attempt yesterday to launch an attack on the Colombo harbour failed.

Surprising enough such an attempt came just half an hour before the Navy, with the support of elements of the Army and Police, were to carry out a rehearsal of the Colombo Harbour Action Plan. City police stations and port authorities were among those informed that the rehearsal was scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. This rehearsal was part of an exercise to ensure security measures to safeguard the port were in place in the event of a guerrilla attack. The attempted attack on the harbour came at 5.30 a.m. and transformed the rehearsal into a real event.

The Navy did prevent three guerrilla dinghies involved in the attempted attack from entering the Colombo harbour. An alert sailor on duty near the Colombo light house flashed his spot light and observed one of the guerrilla dinghies moving towards the breakwater. He held on whilst a colleague opened fire. The sailor received a field promotion from Navy Headquarters yesterday. The two remaining dinghies moved away.

One of them had later rammed the container vessel Peloponesian Pride that was scheduled to berth in the harbour at 6 a.m. It was six nautical miles from shore. The noise of the explosion shook buildings inside the inside the Colombo Port. However, there was no damage to the vessel. Doors of a few containers and a door attached to the living quarters for crew had broken.

The third dinghy had caught fire after Navy opened fire. Later, three guerrilla cadres who had jumped overboard were arrested. They were being interrogated. One of them was living near Negombo. Navy officials claimed that one of the guerrilla targets would have been an offshore patrol vessel which had returned from a foreign country after a refit. Other sources, however, said the guerrillas planned to hit ships inside the harbour.

Daya Wijesekera, Media Consultant and Co-ordinating Secretary at the Ministry of Ports and Aviation told The Sunday Times the entry-exit gates at the Colombo Port were shut down soon after the incident.

Security forces and police conducted a thorough search. It was re-opened after the search ended, he added. This is the second unsuccessful attempt by the guerrillas to attack the Colombo harbour. The earlier effort during the ongoing ceasefire came on June 17 last year. Four youth engaged in the attempt were arrested. (The Sunday Times - Situation Report June 25 2006).

The reverberations of the Army's success at Vakarai are being echoed in many quarters of the Government. Last Thursday, speaking at the inauguration of work on the Moragahakanda reservoir, President Rajapaksa declared, "terrorism that many once swore cannot be defeated is now crouching in fear because we faced up to that challenge." He asserted that "our security forces have the ability, will and strength to defeat terrorism. Trust in them, for they have proved it in the East…"

If the widely accepted dictum in militaries worldwide is the saying "the essence of successful warfare is secrecy," in the Sri Lankan case there appears to be an exception. It is not the media but military leaders who have publicly announced that with Vakarai regained, they hoped to “clear” other guerrilla dominated villages in the East.

The villages were named. This naturally denies to the military the element of surprise. These pronouncements have led to an exodus of civilians. Would not the guerrillas too get the message to re-locate themselves in the wake of an already announced plan to carry out attacks? Will they not do so with their military hardware?

According to intelligence accounts more than 300 guerrilla cadres had fled to Toppigala area (in the Batticaloa district) after the re-capture of Vakarai. Hence, there is a fine line between re-capture of territory and fighting the guerrillas. The question is - which one will end guerrilla terrorism? A fuller discussion of this together with past examples is not possible in view of the Prevention and Prohibition of Terrorism and Specified Terrorist Activities Regulations. Moreover, some senior officers have now resorted to a new habit of regularly raising issues at the highest levels when they are not mentioned in dispatches, leave alone being praised or when well known details disclosed are not comfortable to them. This is now assuming the from of a new campaign to intimidate the media.

This also raises an all important question - whether the aim of such pre-announced attacks is to only regain guerrilla dominated territory by ousting them together with their hardware? Previous experience, like the re-capture of Jaffna and the return of guerrillas some six months later, was explained on this page last week. In addition, Operation Jaya Sikurui (Victory Assured), the longest and costliest military offensive in the history of the separatist war, was halted in December 1998 without its objective - linking Kilinochchi to Government-controlled Vavuniya - being achieved. Thereafter, a string of operations led to securing vast extents of land in the Wanni, east of the A-9 highway. They were later lost in 1999.

This is by no means to devalue the victory at Vakarai which is an achievement for the Army. The area was re-captured particularly after sacrifices by men from the elite Special Forces and Commando battalions laying down their lives or were injured. There were also a number of important lessons learnt. One such case is the discovery of two 152 mm artillery guns. They were not ones that were captured by the guerrillas from the Army in the Wanni in 1999, according to intelligence sources. Their serial numbers differed. These large weapons had been smuggled in through the seas during the period of the ceasefire. The fact that the LTTE was able to do so makes clear how freely they could move in the seas.

This week, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, vowed "to attack and destroy all Tamil Tiger military assets." The former infantryman and retired Colonel who runs the country's defence and security establishment told Simon Gardner of Reuters news agency "we definitely want to destroy their (LTTE) assets, wherever those are - whether it is in the north, east south."

He was quoted as saying, "We want to destroy their assets everywhere because as long as they have Sea Tiger bases, as long as they have artillery pieces…terrorists are always thinking wherever possible they want to damage.

"Prabhakaran has not come out saying I'm ready for peace, no, he always says we want a separate Eelam - now that's a joke," Mr. Rajapaksa had said. He had added, "what we are doing actually started because the LTTE started going on the offensive."

Pointing out that the Government was committed to peace; the Defence Secretary had also said, "Prabhakaran can talk I suppose. The Norwegians (mediators) are there. They can tell them: 'we are ready to genuinely discuss this problem. He has to be genuine."

He has also declared the Government is not going "for a military solution" and added, "The Government is genuinely committed for a political solution."

From the recent assertions, the bottomlines become even clearer. The Government has pledged continue to destroy guerrilla assets wherever they are in Sri Lanka. The LTTE, in turn, has stepped up retaliatory attacks. The undeclared Eelam War IV is therefore in swing.